WebMD Health Records

[explanade]

Registered for the online account with a new carrier and one of the options that it enables by default is:

Health Record

Your health record lets you see and share past doctor visits, test results, medications and more.
To make this easier for you, we can securely add your claims history into your health record. Your health record is powered by WebMD, so we need your permission below to send your claims.

Send my claims to WebMD No thanks

Learn how your information is kept private, by selecting Privacy in the footer on the website.
Note: Your claims history is sent to your health record on a regular basis, but it may take some time to set up.

Anyone seen this before?

I don't know if I would need to set up an account with WebMD to access these records.

I suppose in theory this could make my health records portable between carriers but I didn't recall seeing it with my previous carrier.

 

[Gotadimple]

It was my understanding that all carriers offer a health record that collects your claim details and lets you print them off to show to a new physican. It was a requirement of the HIPPA Act (Health Insurance Portability . . .). But this is just an exchange of claims history.

In reality if you are moving to a new physician, you can ask your old doctor for a copy of your records to give to the new one. This is an exchange of patient history, which is much more than claims history.

-- Rita

 

[MRG]

I'm with Rita not sure this adds any value for you. Other than your claims history is now in the cloud. My insurance company has them on their system too. I can't see a new provider wanting your claims, only your medical records provided by your old provider.

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[explanade]

Hmm do I want it up on WebMD.

I suppose if I switch carriers again it might be useful to be able to access it.

Do doctors use a standard digital format for health records yet?

 

[Jackanory]

My doctor's health group has contracted with FollowMyHealth.com, so we can see our test results and make appointments, etc. I was hoping to see past results when I logged in, but so far, only my most recent results are available.

 

[MBAustin]

Aetna has had a personal health record in their online system for several years. Very handy for keeping track of when I've had various tests done, etc.

Unfortunately our former megacorp changed our retiree health benefits for next year and we are switching to Blue Cross. So I downloaded the Aetna data into a PDF so I can at least reference it. Did not appear to have an option to export it into a format that could be uploaded into another system.


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[MRG]

Hmm do I want it up on WebMD.

I suppose if I switch carriers again it might be useful to be able to access it.

Do doctors use a standard digital format for health records yet?

Standard formats for health care came around 1987. They're used between the most providers, payers. There are specs for patient EMR exchange but to what level its implemented is the question. HL7 the name of the organization that supports those.

The problem with EMR as I understand it is the smaller providers have little to no IT infrastructure to support the implementation. The bigger players do, but they also have legacy to support and update. Then there are security/network issues between companies.

I believe HHS has a HealthIT group thats mission is to define an infrastructure to support exchange of information. It's a 10 year project, sounds interesting but lots of work.

Different provider's have silos of data about us. My PCP belongs to a group owned by a public company. Not huge but 20 hospitals and the specialists to support them. If I go to any provider in that group they can see all my records.

That said I went to a different large hospital in 2014. My records from that stay came to my PCP via US mail.

Maybe WebMD is trying to fill that void.

Downloading your own medical records and uploading to a new provider probably will never happen. Believe or not DRs figured out a long time ago that some patients would modify their information.:what:




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